At our school, an almost 500 student,
middle school, we are working on differentiation. We have spent time as
a faculty learning about differentiation through collaborative, mixed
grade level and mixed subject book groups. We each had an opportunity
to select a book about differentiation and then met with other people
who selected the same book. We determined how we would read the book
and the conversations we would have each time we met. We are now at a
stage where we are working on implementing what we learned during our
book groups.
This work has a connection to Indicator 2 where teachers are working to
provide students with access to relevant and meaningful math
experiences. We are beginning to use pre-assessments in in order to
determine students' understanding about the upcoming math and then
develop a plan of instruction for children based the knowledge that they
bring to the current unit. This work is helping us recognize that
students learn at different paces and we have to be sure to continually
check in with students and their understanding of mathematics in order
to provide them with the appropriate instruction.
Jenny, I was interested in your work on differentiation at your school and how you deal with the concept of "high" math or honors classes. We are constantly struggling with that at Falmouth. The teachers believe that with differentiation and good teaching we don't need to have a separate class. Parents and administration feel otherwise.
ReplyDelete